John Croley v. Joint Committee on Judicial Administration

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 23, 2018 Decided July 6, 2018

No. 15-5080

JOHN DOUGLAS CROLEY,

APPELLANT

v.

JOINT COMMITTEE ON JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION,

APPELLEE

Consolidated with 15-5153

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:15-cv-00175)

Adele M. El-Khouri, appointed by the court, argued the

cause as amicus curiae in support of appellant. With her on the

briefs was Chad Golder.

John Croley, pro se, was on the briefs for appellant.

Adam Daniel, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the

Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause

for appellee. On the briefs were Karl A. Racine, Attorney

General, Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor General, Stacy Anderson,

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Acting Deputy Solicitor General, and Mary L. Wilson, Senior

Assistant Attorney General.

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, PILLARD, Circuit Judge,

and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: In 1985, John Croley brought a

personal injury suit against the Republican National

Committee (RNC) in the District of Columbia Superior Court

after an RNC security guard physically assaulted Croley while

he was photographing an overflowing dumpster near RNC

headquarters. See Croley v. Republican Nat’l Comm., 759

A.2d 682, 686 (D.C. 2000). A jury ruled in Croley’s favor in

1998, awarding him a $1.2 million judgment against the RNC.

In 2002, the RNC paid $1.37 million—that judgment plus

interest—into the District of Columbia court system’s coffers.

Croley’s lawyers promptly took their fee from that pot pursuant

to an attorney’s charging lien against the sum. Croley himself,

however, did not then receive the remaining $1.25 million.

Croley did not get his money until 2015, thirteen years after the

RNC had paid in full.

Croley here sues the Joint Committee on Judicial

Administration, the administrative arm of the D.C. court

system, seeking compensatory and punitive damages for what

he alleges was the Joint Committee’s role in the events causing

that thirteen-year delay in receiving his payment. After the

RNC paid and counsel took their cut, Croley—suffering

permanent and disabling injuries from the assault—was left

unable to navigate the process of obtaining his money from the

registry at the Superior Court. The money the RNC paid to

satisfy the judgment was in the court’s possession as of 2002

but, Croley alleges, court administrators failed to release it to

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him; they rebuffed his requests for assistance and for

reasonable accommodations for his disabilities, and they

misled him as to the funds’ status. If the Joint Committee had

requisite disability accommodation policies in place, Croley

alleges, he would have had prompt possession of his damages

award. Instead, Croley was deprived for more than a decade of

funds meant to compensate him for, among other things, his

lost earnings. And he spent significant time, expense, and

energy over those many years in repeated, unsuccessful efforts

to dislodge his judgment from the Superior Court—efforts that

would have been entirely unnecessary, he contends, if the Joint

Committee had fulfilled its legal obligations.

Croley, acting pro se, sued the Joint Committee in federal

court for damages. He claimed that the Joint Committee

violated his property rights and failed to comply with its

affirmative obligations under federal law to accommodate

disabled litigants. The district court sua sponte dismissed

Croley’s complaint for want of federal jurisdiction under the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine. To the extent Croley’s complaint

calls for appeal of a District of Columbia court order issued in

Croley’s suit against the RNC, any such claim is barred by

Rooker-Feldman. But Rooker-Feldman is no bar to those

portions of Croley’s federal complaint against the Joint

Committee that do not seek to appeal orders in his Superior

Court suit against the RNC: Neither Croley’s claim that

Superior Court administrative personnel violated his property

rights by misleading him and mishandling his award, nor his

claim that court administrators neglected their legal duty to

make the courts accessible to persons with disabilities like his,

necessarily calls for the federal courts to review any state court

judgment. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district

court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

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I.

In his 1985 personal injury suit, Croley established that an

RNC-employed security guard attacked him, inflicting post-

traumatic stress disorder, chest trauma, and brain injuries that

left him permanently disabled. See Croley, 759 A.2d at 686-

88. Croley was photographing an overflowing trash dumpster

on the street where he lived, planning to present the photos at

an upcoming zoning meeting as evidence of a public sanitation

problem, when he was approached by two security guards

assigned to the RNC office building on an adjacent property.

Id. at 686. The guards told Croley he was not permitted to

engage in nighttime activities on that street. Id. Croley,

believing he was acting within his rights on a public street, kept

taking pictures. Id. One of the guards then assaulted and

severely injured Croley. Id.

Croley filed suit against the RNC and the security guard in

D.C. Superior Court. Following a seven-day trial in October

1998, id. at 698, a jury awarded Croley $1.2 million, id. at 689.

In 2000, the D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed. Id. at 694, 703.

At this threshold procedural stage, we have a limited

record chronicling the disconnect between Croley and the

money the RNC paid to satisfy his judgment. We rely on

Croley’s pro se complaint, which we construe in the light most

favorable to him, see Brown v. Whole Foods Mkt. Grp., 789

F.3d 146, 150 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (Whole Foods), and also refer

to the rather sparse and obscure entries in the Superior Court

docket in Croley’s 1985 suit against the RNC, see Veg-Mix,

Inc. v. Dep’t of Agric., 832 F.2d 601, 607 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Pro

se complaints like Croley’s must be “liberally construed” and

“held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted

by lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007)

(quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976)); see also

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Whole Foods, 789 F.3d at 150, 152. We note that our

description of Croley’s claims makes no determination of their

factual veracity or legal adequacy; our review is limited to the

threshold question whether the types of claims Croley alleges

are jurisdictionally barred for the reasons given by the district

court.

After successful defense of his judgment in the D.C. Court

of Appeals in 2000, see Croley, 759 A.2d at 694, Croley’s

relationship with counsel broke down. Croley alleges that, as

early as January 2001, he tried to file a complaint against his

counsel for failing to help him find and gain possession of the

money the RNC had paid. Compl. ¶ 34(c)(ii). He sought and

was denied assistance to do so from the Americans with

Disabilities Act (ADA) coordinator at the D.C. Superior Court.

Id. Croley’s counsel in March 2001 filed an attorney’s lien to

secure his own fee from the judgment proceeds and moved to

withdraw his appearance on Croley’s behalf. The court

recognized the lien and granted the motion to withdraw.

Croley received the court’s permission to proceed in forma

pauperis.

The RNC in January of 2002 paid $1,367,012.37—

Croley’s jury award plus post-judgment interest to that date.

The docket records a motion “for authority to deposit judgment

proceeds into registry of court,” which the court granted with

the specifications that the RNC’s payment satisfied the

judgment and that defendants “are in no way responsible for

the resolution of the fee dispute between [Croley] and [his]

counsel.” Appendix (App.) 87. Croley’s counsel then moved

to collect his fees, and the Superior Court distributed

$115,579.39 to him in full satisfaction of the attorney’s lien.

Croley’s damages apparently remained in possession of the

court.

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The docket reflects no further activity in Croley’s Superior

Court case for more than three years, at which point an entry

states: “Converted Court Ordered Escrow as of May 19, 2005.”

App. 88. That entry records the “amount paid” as

$1,251,432.98, App. 88, a sum equal to the RNC’s payment

minus the attorney’s lien, without interest from the time the

court took possession of the payment in 2002. Only a few

months later, the docket states: “Unclaimed escrow funds

transferred to the US Treasury on 9/27/05,” with no further

explanation or any suggestion that a court order directed such

transfer. App. 88. The same docket entry then includes the

notation “VOIDED UNDELIVERABLE.” App. 88. Croley

alleges that, in fact, “defendant Superior Court never conveyed

plaintiff Croley’s property to US Treasury,” but instead

“constantly possessed plaintiff Croley’s property for itself,

notwithstanding the misleading accounting reports and false

statements of D.C. courts.” Compl. ¶ 19(d) n.3.

Approximately two and a half years later, the docket

shows that Croley, still acting pro se, sought possession of his

money. On February 6, 2008, the Superior Court denied

Croley’s “Motion to Return Money Paid to Court Register.”

App. 88. Apparently recognizing that Croley’s $1.2 million

was unaccounted for, the court’s order said in full:

The Court cannot discern on the motion presented

that the moving party is entitled to the funds. In

addition the movant represents that the Court is no

longer in possession of any funds. On this motion,

the Court cannot find it has jurisdiction to order any

return of funds that may now be in possession of the

United States Treasury.

Order Den. Pl.’s Mot. to Return Money Paid to Ct. Register,

1985-CA-2075 (Feb. 5, 2008). Croley did not appeal that

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order. According to the docket, activity in the case then ceased

for five more years, until March 2013, when an attorney

entered an appearance on Croley’s behalf, only to withdraw

just over a year later, with Croley still empty-handed.

Croley alleges that, all the while, he personally contacted

the court repeatedly to collect his money, but administrative

personnel misled him about its status and location. Compl.

¶¶ 19(d), 20. Court administrative staff, for example, “falsely

advised” Croley to collect from the “Office of Unclaimed

Funds,” although his funds remained in the court registry. Id.

¶ 37. In his attempts to gain possession of his money, Croley

also alleges that he—like other disabled litigants in the D.C.

court system—was repeatedly denied disability

accommodations such as extra time and easy-to-navigate

procedures. Id. ¶¶ 30-31. In one such instance, Croley alleges,

he asked the court’s ADA coordinator to help him respond to

his new attorney’s 2014 withdrawal motion, but the

coordinator did not “direct Plaintiff Croley to published

grievance procedures” or otherwise assist him. Id. ¶ 34(c)(i).

Croley finally succeeded in bringing the matter to a head

late in 2014. On September 17, Croley moved to “Restore

Affirmed Judgment.” App. 89. On November 24, 2014,

Croley, again pro se, filed the federal suit at issue in this appeal.

That same day—a dozen years after the RNC paid the judgment

into the court registry and Croley first sought to collect it—the

D.C. Superior Court scheduled a status hearing on the funds

and issued a Notice of Intent to Release Funds, that is, to pay

Croley his money. The United States and the District of

Columbia responded to the D.C. Superior Court’s Notice by

affirmatively disclaiming any right or interest to the funds. On

December 18, 2014, the court formally ordered disbursement.

On January 14, 2015, nearly twenty years after he filed his

personal injury suit in D.C. Superior Court and thirteen years

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after the D.C. Court of Appeals sustained the verdict in his

favor, Croley finally received the $1,251,432.98 the court had

withheld: the total of the RNC’s payment minus Croley’s

attorney’s lien, without any interest for the time the D.C.

Superior Court had possession of the money.

When the Superior Court ordered the disbursement, it

described Croley’s case against the RNC as “closed,” and the

court’s own authority as limited to issuing the order calling for

release from the court registry. The Superior Court judge

added at the hearing: “[I]f [Croley] had an issue with what the

Superior Court did, then [he was] free to file a lawsuit on that.

But filing it as part of this closed case was not appropriate.

Because the District of Columbia Superior Court would have

to be a party to that action and that party needs notice.” App.

111-12.

This case seeks to hold the Joint Committee responsible

for the court administration’s role in the long delay Croley

faced between winning his award and receiving it. The Joint

Committee on Judicial Administration, composed of judges,

manages general personnel policies, accounts and auditing, and

procurement and disbursement for the D.C. court system. See

D.C. Code § 11-1701(b). As the Joint Committee itself

explains, it bears the “general administrative responsibilities

for the local District of Columbia Courts.” Appellee’s Br. at 2.

Although the complaint interchangeably charges “DC Courts,”

the Superior Court, and the Court of Appeals with wrongdoing,

it is fairly understood to refer to the courts insofar as they were

inadequately administered by the Joint Committee, the entity

the complaint names as “responsible for” the court system’s

“policies.” Compl. ¶ 6; see id. ¶ 5.

Croley’s pro se federal complaint raises two sets of claims.

First, Croley claims the Joint Committee violated his property

9

rights. He alleges that the court system’s retention of the

money judgment he won and its interference with his access to

that award violated his rights under the Due Process and

Takings Clauses of the United States Constitution, and under

District of Columbia law governing theft, conversion, and

unclaimed funds. Compl. ¶¶ 9-21, 35-44. Second, Croley

claims that during the many years he sought to collect his

money, administrative personnel in the D.C. court system

violated federal disabilities law, including the ADA and

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Id. ¶¶ 23-34. He also

alleges the court system failed to establish appropriate

disability accommodation procedures, including by neglecting

to affirmatively offer disabled litigants support or to conduct

self-evaluations mandated by ADA regulation. Id. ¶¶ 25-26.

For both sets of claims, the complaint seeks damages; it

includes no plea for injunctive relief. Id. ¶¶ 21, 34(e), 44.

Before the Joint Committee filed any responsive

pleadings, the district court, on January 30, 2015, sua sponte

dismissed Croley’s complaint. In a one-page opinion, it stated

that “plaintiff asks this Court to review the rulings of the

District of Columbia courts,” but that the court lacked

jurisdiction to do so under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

Croley v. Joint Comm. on Judicial Admin., 2015 WL 511355,

at *1 (D.D.C. Feb. 4, 2015). Croley moved for reconsideration

and sought recusal of the district court judge. The district court,

with a new judge presiding because Croley’s case was not

initially assigned to a specific judge’s docket, denied Croley’s

motion to reconsider, and denied the recusal motion as moot.

Croley v. Joint Comm. on Judicial Admin., No. 15-175, Docket

No. 13 (D.D.C. Apr. 15, 2015). Croley, still pro se, appealed

the court’s Rooker-Feldman dismissal order. On appeal,

amicus counsel filed supplemental briefing on Croley’s behalf.

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II.

This appeal presents a single, threshold question: whether

the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars Croley’s federal complaint.

Rooker-Feldman’s jurisdictional bar protects the Supreme

Court’s certiorari jurisdiction under Section 1257 of Title 28 of

the United States Code. It ensures that the United States

Supreme Court is the only federal court to hear appeals from

judgments rendered by the highest court of a state (or, as here,

the District of Columbia). See D.C. Court of Appeals v.

Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Tr. Co.,

263 U.S. 413 (1923); see also Gray v. Poole, 275 F.3d 1113,

1119 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Operationally, the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine “is confined to cases of the kind from which the

doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by [i] state-court

losers [ii] complaining of injuries caused by state-court

judgments rendered before the [federal] district court

proceedings commenced and [iii] inviting district court review

and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi

Basic Indus., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). The Supreme Court

has repeatedly emphasized that the doctrine is “narrow,”

applicable to bar only complaints that meet those listed

conditions. Id.; see Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 531

(2011); Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 464 (2006); see also

Singletary v. D.C., 766 F.3d 66, 71 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Indeed,

the only two cases in which the Supreme Court has ever applied

the doctrine to dismiss an action are the Rooker and Feldman

namesake cases themselves. See Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S.

at 283.

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of

Croley’s complaint on Rooker-Feldman grounds. See Whole

Foods, 789 F.3d at 150. The district court had subject-matter

jurisdiction over Croley’s federal law claims under 26 U.S.C.

§ 1331, and supplemental jurisdiction over the related D.C. law

11

claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a); we have jurisdiction to

review the district court’s decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

We consider first Croley’s property claims, then his disability

claims, to determine whether they are impermissible de facto

appeals from D.C. courts’ judgments. The Joint Committee

contends that Croley’s claims call for review of six identified

orders: (1) the Superior Court’s order barring evidence of brain

injury as sanction for Croley’s failure to timely submit to a

physical examination and (2) the District of Columbia Court of

Appeals order affirming it; and the Superior Court’s orders (3)

authorizing the RNC in 2002 to deposit funds in satisfaction of

the judgment; (4) disbursing money to Croley’s former

attorneys in 2002 pursuant to the attorney’s lien; (5) denying in

2008 Croley’s motion to release the funds for want of

information about his entitlement and the funds’ location; and

(6) denying in 2014 Croley’s motion for an extension of time

to oppose his attorney’s withdrawal motion. The Joint

Committee does not contend that Croley’s complaint

challenges any other orders of the Superior Court or Court of

Appeals.

We reject the Joint Committee’s theory and reverse and

remand to the district court because Rooker-Feldman does not

bar Croley’s claims: (i) He was a state-court winner, not a

loser. (ii) The harms of which the current suit complains flow,

not from any District of Columbia court judgment, but from

administrative handling of money the RNC paid to the court in

final satisfaction of a judgment. (iii) Croley’s case seeks

review and rejection not of any state-court judgment, but of the

adequacy under property and disability law of court

administrators’ handling of funds entrusted to them on Croley’s

behalf after the state court entered its judgment. See Exxon

Mobil Corp., 522 U.S. at 284.

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A.

Croley first alleges that the Joint Committee violated his

property rights by retaining and failing to distribute to him the

money judgment he won and the RNC paid to the court

registry. The court deemed the RNC’s tort judgment satisfied,

it paid out a portion of Croley’s winnings to counsel to cover

his fee, but then retained the balance of the funds for more than

thirteen years. No District of Columbia court order required

court administrators to withhold Croley’s money from him, and

no such order is on appeal here.

Croley rests his property claims on both D.C. law and the

United States Constitution. He brings common-law claims for

conversion and theft, Compl. ¶ 43, as well as for violation of

the D.C. unclaimed funds law, D.C. Code § 41-101 et seq.,

which calls on the city to take possession of unclaimed property

and to notify the property’s owner, id. §§ 41-118, 41-120;

Compl. ¶ 37. Croley also alleges that the Joint Committee

violated the Due Process and Takings Clauses of the United

States Constitution when courthouse personnel obfuscated the

location of his funds, thus effectively “seiz[ing]” them and

“disrupt[ing]” his access to them. See Compl. ¶¶ 13, 20. Those

claims are based on Croley’s allegation that administrative

personnel in the D.C. court system “falsely advised” him to

collect his award from an “Office of Unclaimed Funds” and

otherwise failed to meet statutory obligations. Id. ¶ 37. He

seeks “punitive damages, costs, interest and fees as allowed by

law.” Id. ¶ 21.

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars review only of judicial

orders, see Feldman, 460 U.S. at 486, but Croley’s challenge is

to administrative conduct, not any judicial order. When “the

proceedings giving rise to the rule are non-judicial[,] the

policies prohibiting United States District Court review of final

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state-court judgments are not implicated” and “28 U.S.C.

§ 1257 does not act as a bar to the District Court’s

consideration of the case.” Feldman, 460 U.S. at 486; see also

Singletary, 766 F.3d at 72; Stanton v. D.C. Court of Appeals,

127 F.3d 72, 75 (D.C. Cir. 1997). The Joint Committee at oral

argument recognized that if the D.C. Clerk’s Office or other

administrative entities misled Croley regarding the

whereabouts of his property, such misdeeds would not be

barred by Rooker-Feldman. See Oral Arg. Tr. 48:15-50:12,

61:8-14. Croley’s complaint on its face challenges precisely

such administrative misdeeds. Compl. ¶¶ 19, 19(d).

Croley’s property claims arise out of allegations of false

and misleading conduct by the Clerk’s Office or other

administrative staff: “DC Courts persistently [misled] plaintiff

Croley and various attorneys as to the location and status of

plaintiff Croley’s property,” including when “DC Courts

falsely advised [they] had conveyed plaintiff Croley’s property

to the ‘US Treasury’ without further specification.” Compl.

¶ 19(d); see id. ¶ 37. Croley plausibly alleges that he contacted

court administrators several times after the Court of Appeals

affirmed the tort award in his favor and the court registry

accepted payment in his behalf. See id. ¶ 19(d). As described

above, each time Croley attempted to collect the money, the

registry retained it and, each time, the disbursement process

failed him. It is the actions of administrators, outside and

independent of D.C. judicial proceedings, that Croley alleges

frustrated collection of that judgment. Those actions do not

implicate Rooker-Feldman’s bar.

The Joint Committee’s assertion that Croley seeks reversal

of the Superior Court’s 2008 order denying his request for

disbursement is unconvincing. The 2008 order, which stated

that the $1.2 million was lost to court records, could indeed be

appealed only to the D.C. Court of Appeals or ultimately to the

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Supreme Court. Croley’s complaint, though, invokes that

order only by way of background. See Compl. ¶ 18. The

complaint does not seek to appeal the order itself—in fact, the

Superior Court’s 2015 disbursement order has already

superseded the 2008 order denying payment, and Croley by no

means asks to collect his judgment anew from the RNC. To

the contrary, Croley here raises independent claims about

administrators’ conduct; those claims are not barred even to the

extent that he seeks in the process to “den[y] a legal conclusion

that a state court has reached in a case to which he was a party.”

Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S. at 293. Conflict between a

conclusion of the state court and an independent claim against

a different defendant in federal court might call for some sort

of preclusion analysis once the court asserts its jurisdiction, but

not the Rooker-Feldman jurisdictional bar. Id.

Croley’s property claims against the Joint Committee call

for neither federal review nor reversal of any D.C. court order

entered in his wholly distinct, closed tort case against the RNC.

After all, Croley won in state court. That court entered final

judgment in his favor. Croley’s property claims against the

Joint Committee allege different harms from the assault-based

claims at issue in his suit against the RNC. They seek to

enforce his legal rights against a different defendant, and seek

a different remedy. Accordingly, lower federal court review of

Croley’s property claims is not an effort to appeal the D.C.

court’s judgment and is not barred by Rooker-Feldman.

B.

Croley’s second set of claims alleges that, in his effort to

gain possession of money paid to the court registry to satisfy

his state court judgment, he was harmed by the D.C. court

system’s lack of the requisite policies and procedures for

disability accommodation. He alleges, in particular, that the

15

Joint Committee failed to meet its “affirmative obligation”

under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act “to accommodate

persons with disabilities in the administration of justice” during

the underlying litigation and, more importantly, award

payment. Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509, 533 (2004); see

Compl. ¶¶ 23-28; see also Americans with Disabilities Act, 42

U.S.C. §§ 12131-34; Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et

seq. Croley also alleges the Joint Committee failed to meet its

obligations under the ADA’s implementing regulations: He

complains that it followed neither the self-assessment

requirements imposed by 28 C.F.R. § 35.105, see Compl. ¶ 25

n.4, nor the requirement to designate an ADA coordinator and

to create grievance procedures per 28 C.F.R. § 35.107, see

Compl. ¶ 34(c). For the Joint Committee’s failure to establish

an appropriate disability accommodation “policy,” id. ¶¶ 5, 30,

34(b), Croley seeks damages, id. ¶ 34(e).

These claims, too, are not barred by Rooker-Feldman. As

the Supreme Court made clear in Feldman, lower federal courts

may review a “general challenge” to an administrative rule or

policy without impermissibly reviewing or reversing a

particular state court judgment that assumed the policy was

valid. 460 U.S. at 483; see id. at 484-86; Stanton, 127 F.3d at

75-76 (recognizing that review of “general challenges” is

“permissible” when it does not functionally compel reversal of

specific state court decisions). Croley’s federal disability claim

“does not seek to ‘review’ or ‘undo’ any D.C.-court decision.”

Singletary, 766 F.3d at 72. It instead challenges alleged

shortfalls in the Joint Committee’s administrative policies.

As discussed, Croley claims the Committee lacked

requisite policies for responding to and assisting pro se litigants

with cognitive or emotional disabilities. See, e.g., Compl.

¶¶ 25-27. He alleges that “DC courts regard[] disability

accommodation as a contested issue, to be repeatedly

16

determined and re-determined as a matter of ongoing

controversy throughout the course of each action before DC

Courts.” Id. ¶ 34(b); see id. ¶ 34(d). A court system in

compliance with its affirmative federal obligations, Croley

contends, would have as a matter of course afforded disabled

litigants like him appropriate accommodations and would have

published “clear, simple . . . procedures” for navigating the

court’s requirements. Id. ¶ 30. Croley’s complaint provides

several “specific examples,” id. ¶ 34, of administrative failures

to meet those obligations, including court administrators’

refusal to help him understand and access procedures for filing

grievances against counsel and make various other complaints,

see id. ¶¶ 34(c)(i)-(ii).

The Joint Committee artificially construes Croley’s

disability claims as limited to those specific examples and

mischaracterizes Croley’s claims as appeals of adverse rulings

in an attempt to cast this case in Rooker-Feldman’s mold. See

Appellee’s Br. 27-30; Oral Arg. Tr. 53:16-19; see also Compl.

¶ 34. The Committee invokes two rulings in particular: The

Superior Court, as a sanction for Croley’s failure to timely

submit to a physical examination, prohibited Croley from

introducing evidence of his brain injury, see 759 A.2d at 686-

88, 696-702, and the court refused to grant him an extension of

time to respond to his counsel’s withdrawal motion, see App.

88. If Croley’s complaint were a challenge to those orders,

Rooker-Feldman could conceivably bar federal review.

As discussed above, however, Croley’s complaint

expressly makes a broader, general challenge to the District of

Columbia courts’ policies, Compl. ¶¶ 5, 30, 34(b), based on

distinct harms it caused him: making it unduly hard for him,

with his disabilities, to participate effectively in the litigation,

and causing his property to be long withheld from him without

clear means reasonably accessible to him for gaining

17

possession of it. The Joint Committee recognized at argument

that Croley’s complaint “clearly” levies “general policy-like”

challenges, independent of challenges to specific D.C. court

orders. See Oral Arg. Tr. 54:4-11; see also id. at 51:10-54:11,

47:18-48:2. The different party he sues and the distinct

damages he seeks confirm that federal review of his challenge

to the court’s disability policies would not disturb the state

court’s orders. See Gray, 275 F.3d at 1119. Croley seeks

damages from the Joint Committee for the physical and

emotional costs he alleges he incurred navigating a court

system bereft of appropriate accommodations; the complaint

can be read to allege such harms both during the litigation

against the RNC and in the period after its conclusion when

Croley sought to gain access to his money. Another measure

of his damages might be the time value of the $1.2 million since

2002—after the RNC paid, while the court system withheld

it—which he could not have received in his suit in D.C. court,

but which he claims he would have accrued on his own account

had requisite procedures been in place.

Whether those damages are available, and in what

measure, turns largely on what the ADA guarantees to litigants

in Croley’s position. That question, however, speaks to the

merits of Croley’s claim rather than to whether lower federal

courts have jurisdiction to assess it. To be clear, to the extent

Croley’s complaint seeks damages based on counterfactual

court victories Croley might have won against the RNC had the

court not denied him enlarged time or limited his proof of brain

injury, Rooker-Feldman is a bar. But Croley has pleaded a

distinct federal claim challenging the Joint Committee’s failure

to afford ADA-compliant accommodation to disabled litigants.

The ADA “authorizes private citizens to bring suits for money

damages,” Lane, 541 U.S. at 517 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 12133),

and Croley’s complaint that the Committee lacked procedures

to reasonably accommodate cognitively or emotionally

18

disabled litigants would, if meritorious, be remediable. The

question of whether such claims would succeed on the merits

presents no jurisdictional Rooker-Feldman problem.

III.

The Joint Committee maintains that, even were we to

reverse the district court’s Rooker-Feldman ruling, we should

affirm its dismissal of Croley’s complaint on non-jurisdictional

grounds, such as judicial immunity, preclusion, or failure to

state a legally cognizable claim including, for example,

whether Croley would have a private right of action under the

ADA’s implementing regulations. We decline to reach those

issues. We therefore reverse the district court’s threshold

jurisdictional dismissal and remand for the district court to

consider the complaint anew. Motions to amend the complaint,

or to dismiss it on grounds other than Rooker-Feldman, are for

the district court to consider in the first instance on remand.

So ordered.